Shortly after my original piece, “Hate Speech and the Process of Dehumanization,” I received a form of constructive criticism. A friend suggested that while I provided a coherent explanation of Prof. Zimbardo’s basic concepts regarding the process of dehumanization as it relates Nazi atrocities and the Jim Crow South, my application of Zimbardo to the more contemporary question of Muslims and Arabs failed to do justice to Prof. Shaheen’s academic study of American films.

While the criticism is valid, that certainly had not been my intent.

The problem entails issues of length in the blog format --- the risk that length will reduce the size of the audience one hopes to educate.

As revealed by the previously cited Egypt Today review, Jack Shaheen’s study of early 20th Century films exposed Hollywood's application of “the generic ‘Ali Baba kit’ comprising of lecherous, barbaric Arab men flanked by erotic belly dancers.” Just as African American men were cast as lusting after white women in the Jim Crow era, these early films depicted the “prize of every Sheikh’s harem” as “the abducted American woman who bravely fights off her sinister master’s sexual advances.”

These disparaging images morphed into an even more sinister caricature of Arabs in the post World War II era --- images that coincided with the advent of the Arab/Israeli conflict, the early 70s oil embargo and the Iranian hostage crisis. Against a backdrop of a reality in which intelligent Arab women today are “succeeding in all professions,” Sheehan laments, Hollywood replaced the erotic image of the belly dancer with projections of the Arab woman “as a bomber, a terrorist.” Added to this is what Shaheen calls “’bundles in black,’ veiled women in the background, in the shadows, submissive."

The threat of Arab/Muslim terrorists finds its ultimate embodiment in Rules of Engagement, a film which was written by former Secretary of the Navy and now U.S. Senator James Webb (D-VA); a film Shaheen describes as “the most racist.”

Shaheen described the action, which takes place in Yemen:

There are violent demonstrations at the American embassy, and the Marines, led by Samuel L. Jackson…open fire on the crowd and kill scores of Yemeni, including women and children. And in the investigation that follows, Tommy Lee Jones, the lawyer who represents the Samuel L. Jackson character, goes to Yemen to investigate….He follows [a one-legged little girl to a hospital ward where he discovers a videotape which when translated states that it is the duty of every Muslim to kill Americans.] We discover that the Yemeni civilians aren’t so innocent after all. It turns out they fired on the Marines first. And in a moment that will live in Hollywood infamy, we suddenly learn that the little girl we’ve been sympathizing with, the very girl whose humanity and innocence may have broken down our stereotypes, well, she’s no better than those other Yemeni terrorists. As a result, when Samuel L. Jackson delivers the key line --- [“Waste the mother fuckers”] --- we’re now on his side.

"Why does it matter? Shaheen asks. "Because in the end, the massacre of even women and children has been justified….It’s a slaughter, but it’s a righteous slaughter.”

Shaheen points to a rant by the character Howard Beale from the 1970s movie, Network, in which Beale not only expresses rage against the system in general but especially against a perceived financial takeover by Arabs.

Beale shouts:

Listen to me, God damn it!. The Arabs are simply buying us! There’s only one thing that can stop them! You!

Shaheen observes:

This kind of anger, the anger born of fear, all of it in response to a perceived conspiracy and threat by a specific group of people --- well,we’ve seen and heard this before. If we look at the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazis, at its core is an identical type of economic threat.

Neil Simon’s Chapter Two underscores the disparity between the presently dehumanized Arab and the formerly dehumanized African-American. The film begins with the protagonist, George Schneider, returning from London. “How was London?” his brother asks. “Full of Arabs,” Schneider replies.

“Imagine,” Shaheen states, “”if he had said, ‘Full of blacks,’ ‘Full of Jews’….”

As the Don Imus story reveals, one does not have to imagine. If Beck had openly questioned Barack Obama’s loyalty because he was an African American in the same manner that he questioned Keith Ellison’s loyalty because Ellison is a Muslim, Beck’s career would have been over.

Beck is hardly alone in his dehumanized conception of Muslims. Consider some of the words of America’s Eva Braun, aka Ann Coulter.

Writing about Muslims on Sept. 12, 2001 for the National Review, Coulter said, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” In a Dec. 21, 2005 column, Coulter wrote: :” “I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.”

When her use of the words “camel jockeys” was challenged during an October 1, 2006 appearance on Fox News’s Hannity & Colmes, Coulter responded with sarcasm: “Oh. Yeah. No. They killed 3,000 Americans. I’ll be very careful with my language.”

In her November 30, 2006 column Coulter took the NAACP to task for speaking up for Muslims who had been subjected to racial profiling at airports. Coulter wrote:

The only reason Americans feel guilty about ‘racial profiling’ against blacks is because of the history of discrimination against blacks in this country. What did we do to the Arabs? I believe Americans are the victims in that relationship. After the attacks of 9/11, profiling Muslims is more like profiling the Klan.

Coulter’s conflation of the actions of nineteen 9/11 hijackers into “they killed 3,000 Americans” and Beck’s obnoxious demand that a United States Congressman “prove” he is “not working with our enemies” are but a reflection of what Prof. Zimbardo described as the “cortical cataract” brought on by the process of dehumanization; a myopic inability to distinguish the actions of a handful of individuals from the larger, objectified "they," meaning all Arabs, all Muslims. (Most, but not all, Iranians are Muslim, but they are not Arabs. They’re Persians.)

The extent to which American culture is imbued with anti-Muslim racism helps to explain the ease with which the Bush administration succeeded in falsely linking Iraq to al Qaeda and 9/11. While the administration doctored intelligence, lied about WMD and links to al Qaeda, Bush and Cheney never flat-out accused Saddam Hussein of complicity in 9/11. They didn't have to. Against a backdrop of the televised images of burning towers, grainy photos of hijackers, and black-garbed, gun-wielding terrorists in training camps, Bush and Cheney laced their pre-invasion speeches with references to terrorists, 9/11 and WMD. The terrorists attacked us on 9/11. We don't want the "smoking gun" to come in the form of "a mushroom" cloud.

Cultural dehumanization aided the deception. The 9/11 hijackers were Arabs. Bin Laden is a Muslim. Iraq is filled with Arab Muslims. Coulter's inability to distinguish between those who were actually responsible and the ubiquitous "they" was shared by many.

While much had been made of a Le Moyne College/Zogby Poll released on February 28, 2006, which contained the number 72, representing the percentage of troops serving in Iraq who felt the U.S. should withdraw within a year, the telling statistic was the number 85 --- the percentage of troops serving in Iraq who, at that late date, still believed the U.S. mission was intended “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks”

Of course, dehumanization does not provide the only explanation. Keep in mind that the top-down organization of the military; the fact that on Sept. 27, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publicly stated that there was “bulletproof” evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and that, according to Steve Tatham, who had headed the British Royal Navy’s Media Operation in Iraq from November 2002 to April 2003, “the only TV station that was broadcasting continuously into military accommodations, the eating areas, the living spaces, even on the ships, was Fox News."

As revealed by Norman Solomon in War Made Easy A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) of the University of Maryland concerning people who erroneously believed either that we invaded Iraq because of WMD or links to al Qaeda revealed not only that 80% of Fox News viewers held at least one of these misperceptions but that viewers of other major networks were not far behind—the number was 71% at CBS, 61% at ABC, 55% each at CNN and NBC as compared to only 23% at PBS.

The ease of the manipulation lies not simply in the process of dehumanization but in the mainstream media's failure to convey information vital to intelligent participation in a democracy.

Coulter’s “what did we do to Arabs?” even more than George Bush’s “why do they hate us?” reflects a fundamental ignorance of issues of “blow-back” that relate to U.S. efforts to acquire and consolidate imperial hegemony throughout the oil-rich Middle East.

Coulter seems totally unaware that 13 years of devastating U.N. economic sanctions, imposed at the insistence of three successive U.S. Presidential administrations, caused the deaths of more than 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five. Indeed, as a result of the psychic distance created by the dehumanization process, Coulter appears blinded to the reality that more than one million Iraqis lost their lives as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation, an unprovoked imperial aggression carried out against a nation and a people who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.

“What did we do to Arabs?” she asks.

===

Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).

Dear writer,
I am a Yemeni citizen and i am not with what you wrote on this blog, as we [ the Yemenis] are not like what you say as a terrorist who want to kill all Americans.
Do u have mind to say that we want to kill Americans .
We are Muslims and do not kill anyone even if the killers of Iraqis and Afghans [of course you]. We are not like you killers.
regards,
Baleegh.
By the way I have two U.S. brothers

I am truly disappointed that you so completely misunderstood the words I wrote. Perhaps it is a language barrier.

I did not suggest that all Yemenis are terrorists --- just the opposite.

The words I wrote were not my words. They were the words used by Professor Jack Shaheen, a Lebanese-American, to describe the motion picture Rules of Engagement that falsely depicts all Arabs and Muslims as terrorists.

I am troubled by your use of the words, "you killers."

Do you not understand that there are many Americans, like me, who are opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you think that everyone in America wants to kill Iraqis and Afghans?

I think maybe the world has some grounds to call us all killers, Ernie. It is within our power to stop the people conducting all these extermination campaigns some call "military adventures" and we have not. We wring our hands about it, or decide to believe the lies for excuses they give, or yell and hiss and spit about it, but we do not unite and STOP it. It would, of course, help if the people getting all this air time were reporting truthfully on such matters, but they're whipping the partisans into frenzies instead... helping keep our eyes off actuality... and continuing to be able to march in anywhere and murder anyone standing in the way of us and our profit is one of the reasons all this hate stuff is on the air waves. We're grownups! We are responsible. Complicit. Guilty. Since we haven't stopped them.

You are justified in calling us killers. A very large part of the US population condones and supports the horrors committed by our military and its contractors in the name of the phony "war on terror."

I apologize for the behavior of my government. As you are in Yemen, I am horrified by what it is doing.

I think, 99, one has to distinguish between such concepts as responsibility and guilt.

Perhaps it can be said that none of us has done enough to bring an end to the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. And, in that sense, we all bear responsibility.

But you cannot apply guilt to people who have consistently opposed, spoken out against, marched, petitioned their representatives, organized etc., first to prevent these wars of choice and then to bring them to an end.

You cannot put even those who were deceived by the Bush regime and their minions in the corporate media into supporting the invasion where they falsely believed Iraq had links to 9/11 and posed an immediate threat into the same category as the amoral architects of imperial conquest.

You cannot imply guilt to the entirety of the American people for all the crimes carried out in their name, often under cover of secrecy.

One of the most basic cornerstones of Anglo-American jurisprudence is the concept of mens rea --- essentially criminal intent. That is why we, for example, make distinctions between justifiable homicide (as occurs in a valid self-defense case) and premeditated murder.

You cannot compare the guilt of a Blackwater mercenary who guns down innocent civilians with the responsibility of someone, like Lt. Erin Watata, who risked going to jail rather than serve in this unlawful, imperial conquest.

Where guilt can still arise is when those whom we elected to restore the rule of law not only avoid their oath of office by failing to bring the architects of the slaughter of more than one million Iraqis, of extraordinary rendition and torture before the bar of justice --- offering the non sequitor that we can only look forward and not back.

Worse, you can extend guilt to those who would continue this policy of imperial aggression.

If you fail to make this vital distinction between guilt and responsibility, you open the door to the argument that none of the perpetrators should be held accountable for their crimes because, in the view you posted, everyone is guilty --- and you can't possibly prosecute everyone (including the prosecutors, the judge and the jury).

From my Zen perspective, the criminal intent part comes in at the subconscious agreement to stay ignorant of such intolerable facts or excuse them somehow, in the interest of avoiding the harshness of the alternatives.

So, while you make an excellent point, America has to stop relying on the world to keep being understanding about the purity of our intentions. If we're a 10th as exceptional as we think we are, we will get this handled. And, everyone will be prosecuted for this... we kind of already are being prosecuted for it! Our sentence is slavery and hunger and homelessness and abjection to an insatiable élite....

99- I agree with Ernest that you do paint with too broad of a brush in your statements in comment #10 above. Saying we all bear the blame for the actions of our government and/or a miscreant part of our population is the same kind of distortion that Ernest is pointing out in his excellent post. It's really not different than Ann Coulter conflating the actions of nineteen 9/11 hijackers to the "Muslims killed 3000 Americans". Baleegh, the Yemeni citizen who commented above, does the same thing by completely misunderstanding (or not reading?) Mr Canning's post and then conflating the actions of our government (with the support of some Americans), into Americans in general. I do understand that actions of governments might more fairly reflect upon its people than actions of a smaller group of people or even a larger movement in a country. Despite that, and as I'm sure you know, our government no longer represents its citizens, it represents its corporate masters, many of whom profit tremendously from the the policies and wars our government brings to the rest of the planet. There is a tremendous effort in place in this country to keep the population struggling to keep their heads above water and dumbed down (e.g.- worthless, reality TV, a culture of celebrity, a completely failed and complicit corporate MSM). Those who see through the lies and understand the "game" can protest, they can call or write to those in power, they can organize and communicate with and try to inform others like this blog does. Certainly, many of us could/should try to do more of this. We can try to vote for change at the local level, but even local elections are more and more corrupted by money and special interests. Beyond the local election, it's all mostly a complete farce. We are only offered the candidates that the power brokers/corporations know will do their bidding, regardless of party affiliation and anyone who doesn't fall into that category is marginalized and portrayed as "out of the mainstream". Short of some kind of insurrection (and likely even if there was) there is little that we can do that can overcome the power and money that has been allowed to accumulate in corporate elite and the "tools" that that they finance to run for office and do their bidding. Such an insurrection is simply not going to happen under the circumstances because, unless there is a critical mass of people (and probably even if there was), any such effort in this country would be met with overwhelming force or at least penalties that most of us, with families and struggling to pay our mortgages, medical expenses, college (for our kids or for past student loans) and other expenses, are not willing to endure. You can say that makes us cowards but this is a very different world than in 1776 or even 1976. The ability of our government to monitor us or its perceived enemies and to exact horrible punishment on those it considers enemy (or conveniently and effectively brings its citizens to perceive as enemies) is unprecedented. The success of the US Military in Iraq would certainly, so far at least, argue against any notion (certainly my notions) that it is near impossible to defeat a large population, on its own homeland, that sees you as its subjugator.

Unfortunately, I think that as a country and a people, we are more screwed than we are able or willing to admit. The system is rigged and working outside the system is fraught with more danger and uncertainty than ever in our history. I speak for myself and certainly not for Mr. Canning or anyone else but I suspect my sentiments are more realistic (and fair to those of us opposed to our country's policies) than what you express above, even if these sentiments are bitterly pessimistic and somewhat defeatist. I would love to hear from those who disagree with me or might give me reason for more hope about our country's future.

I really hate always sounding like the hard ass in these matters, but my point is: Those are all excuses not to take effective action.

I agree with you so much I could almost copy and paste your comment, but the problem is that certain responsibilities are not lifted from our shoulders just because we might lose our job, or our family might be in danger. Humans have forever had the same problems to overcome... and in fact had to drop even more than we do today... in order to stand up and FORCE tyranny to end and justice to prevail.

Why do you think we've been beaten over the head with the stuff about family above all else? Do you think our Revolutionary soldiers didn't have families? That the masses who have risen against these same corporations in South America and India don't have families? Don't die like we do?

We can't just continue to avoid the kind of confrontation necessary to halt the carnage we pay for, we endorse with our tax dollars, with our sacred jobs and the food going in our kids' mouths, and expect the rest of the world to forgive us because we are almost as oppressed by our fascist government as they are.

Freedom is not easy, and it costs way more than almost anyone can bring themselves to admit.

I don't think I sound the least bit like Ann Coulter, or even the anti Ann Coulter.

Is it sort of like this: you take one comment by Mike Malloy (left) and say that the left is just as guilty of hate speech as the right? And leave out the part of QUANTITY: the rightwing controls the AM airwaves, they dominate lineups on every channel, they reach tens of millions more listeners...and simply say "It's the same" by picking out one phrase and justifying all the rightwing hate speech, instead of looking at it realistically by QUANTITY?

It's like comparing a drop of water vs. the ocean, and saying "both are water", they're the SAME.

That's an easy way to justify a bad position, and a tricky way to do it.

Or "Clinton did it, too", instead of addressing an issue...or saying "Chappaquidick" instead of addressing an issue.

As if, someone did something bad, so it justifies opening the floodgates and doing 100 things bad 100x as bad as the one thing you're comparing it to.

QUANTITY!

If you paint things black and white, you don't look at QUANTITY!

An inch is as good as a mile. One murder is as good as one million. One left slur is the same as one million right slurs.

In general, I think everyone knows, the hate speech comes from the right. That's part of what being "left" is, the "left" is not know for hate speech. And to say "they're the same" is a travesty which justifies all the hate speech of the right.

Don't confuse "dehumanizing hate speech" with hating what someone is saying. If you're a righty and you hate what Thom Hartmann is saying, that's not "dehumanizing hate speech" that Hartmann is doing. If he's saying "Towelhead" or "we outta bomb the hell out of those Muslims", that's a little different.

If Rush Limbaugh can say something you disagree with, and that's not "dehumanizing hate speech" if he's just making a point that you don't agree with, that's not dehumanizing anyone. But it's well documented, the "dehumanizing hate speech" of the rightwing radio shows. Ann Coulter? Come on! Do I have to site already documented examples of Ann Coulter's dehumanizing hate speech?

Here's a good question though: if you attack a hate-speecher BECAUSE they're a non-stop hate-speecher, is that hate speech? My opinion: NO. AND...it's "cover" for them to ward off people who are fed up with their hate speech.

If Malloy is attacking a hate speecher (one person) for continually saying dehumanizing hate speech...is that like dehumanizing the entire Arab race?

btw...antiwar.com is going out of business, if they don't get $20,000.00 by Monday. Apparently, there's no rich liberals in this country. Think about it. Can Michael Moore or someone give them $20,000.00 like Scaife and Coors are giving billions to all the rightwing media? Aren't there any rich liberals? Or there are, but they just don't care about "left" media?

I mean, for sure we are all getting that education about how it felt to be an Italian during Mussolini's rise, or a German in Hitler's, but do you propose we merely repeat those failures of courage and will and wait for an army of... well... what army... an army of Jovians to rescue us from submission to the fascist tyrannies?

Heh, I'm listening to Derrick Jensen on YouTube right now, a six-part talk called This Means War, and right here in part three he talks about precisely what I'm talking about... and coming at it from Ernie's and Steve's position, too.

The points you make are solid. Your conclusions are arrived at through logical reasoning, but the substance is lost because so many points have been compacted into the first, exceedingly lengthy paragraph.

If I can have your permission to do so, I will break that paragraph into multiple paragraphs so that the power of your arguments is presented in a more readable format.

Ernest- have away. If you deem it worth your time, I would be honored to have you reconstruct my rant in any way you think would bring more clarity to it. I have certainly enjoyed the salience and eloquence that you always bring to the issues you deal with on this blog.

MICK- I'm not sure who you're addressing in your comment #27. I do think it is quite unfair. Speaking for myself, while I'm sure others have done far more than I, I have made every effort to be as informed as I can be about the issues, to create e-mail lists and inform those contacts about progressive causes and the failings of our government, to sign petitions, write letters to government and other officials and to attend demonstrations. My point was that it is becoming nearly impossible for those of us who have tried to work within the system to achieve our goals. I was also trying to provoke a discussion about the ways and means of dissent although I probably entered this thread too late to get much going. What is it that you propose that us "Germans" do.